Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea earned rave reviews and did excellent business, but it also cost so much to produce that, initially, it may have lost money for ol' Walt. Fox's Journey to the Center of the Earth, also based on a Jules Verne novel and also starring James Mason, is more economical, and led to similarly colorful annual films (produced, alas, by Irwin Allen) over the next several years.

The movie is delightful if occasionally odd and silly at times. Unlike most sci-fi movies of the late 1950s, films produced mainly for teenagers and children at the drive-in market particularly, Journey to the Center of the Earth targeted a broader, more mainstream audience, and for that reason makes its share of concessions to that wider demographic. But James Mason's fine performance and especially Bernard Herrmann's stupendous score more than compensate for the picture's shortcomings.

Twilight Time, licensing the film from 20th Century-Fox, first released a limited edition Blu-ray in May 2012. With virtually indistinguishable packaging, this new release is a 4K remastering. Other reviews generally regard this new transfer as an immense improvement, but it strikes this reviewer as better in some respects, not so much of an upgrade in other ways. And unlike other '50s sci-fi movies good and bad, Journey to the Center of the Earth doesn't hold up quite as well with multiple viewings. If the reader already owns the first release, one need not feel compelled to rush out and purchase the second.

The movie follows the basic plot of Verne's 1864 novel, adjusting most of the characterizations to meet the demands of late-‘50s Hollywood plotting. Newly knighted University of Edinburgh geologist Sir Oliver Lindenbrook (Mason) is presented with a celebratory gift by cash-strapped student Alec McEwan (Pat Boone): an unusually heavy piece of volcanic rock. Lindenbrook unexpectedly discovers a plumb bob inside it, with an inscription Lindenbrook believes written by 16th century scientist Arne Saknussemm. The message directs Lindenbrook to Iceland, to a tiny passageway leading, eventually, to the center of the earth.

Lindenbrook foolishly shares his findings with a Stockholm-based colleague, Professor Göteborg (Ivan Triesault), who as it turns out, hopes to beat Lindenbrook to the earth's core. In Iceland, however, yet another rival, Count Saknussemm (Thayer David), a descendent of the original explorer, murders Göteborg, claiming proprietary rights to the land beneath the ground.

Lindenbrook and McEwan begin their journey, accompanied by Göteborg's widow, Carla (Arlene Dahl), who insists on joining them in order to represent her husband's name; Icelander Hans Bjelke (Peter Ronson, an Olympic athlete born Pétur Rögnvaldsson); and, peculiarly, Hans's beloved duck, Gertrud. Trailing behind them unnoticed is Count Saknussemm, aided by an elderly servant who dies early into the months-long descent.

Although a few short scenes were filmed at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, most of Journey's underground scenes are soundstage sets, occasionally expanded via matte paintings. These sets are at once colorful and gaudy, more like a Disneyland attraction than reality. As was commonplace in studio pictures of the day, a second unit went to Edinburgh, using doubles for Mason and other cast members, with the remainder of the Edinburgh exteriors shot on Fox's backlot. Some of the Iceland scenes were duplicated at Amboy Crater, in San Bernardino County, California, though even many of those exteriors were completed at the studio as well.

The screenplay by Walter Reisch (Ninotchka) and producer Charles Brackett (Sunset Blvd.) is alternately witty and crude, but generally adopts a warm nostalgia for Verne's by now quaint ideas. James Mason particularly gets into the spirit of things, playing Lindenbrook as an obsessively inquisitive scientist but with Victorian attitudes, particularly toward women. The former aspect is quite charming; Lindenbrook's enthusiasm and drive rubs off on the movie audience. The latter, however, is trite and overstated. His combative relationship with the beautiful but emancipated Carla drags the film down, especially during the second half.

The screenplay is odd in other respects, such as the inclusion of Gertrud the loveable duck, apparently to appeal to children, but whose grim fate in the story is completely at odds with all of the cute scenes with Gertrud that preceded it. (There's an especially funny if pointless scene of Lindenbrook trying to communicate with Gertrud through a wall, he mistaking its tapping for a lady in distress.) Killing off poor Gertrud wasn't necessary to the plot (Gertrud was necessary at all), and audiences invariably feel a bit cheated by this sloppy writing. Its sole intent is to make the Count appear extraordinarily ruthless, something already well established.

Pat Boone, at the time second only to Elvis Presley on the pop charts, is another concession. He's not remotely believable as a scholarly Scottish lad, but he's as sincere as Mason is, which goes a long way toward making him acceptable. Thayer David, best remembered for the later Dark Shadows soap opera, was virtually unknown in 1959, but he's impressively reprehensible as Count Saknussemm.

At two hours and twelve minutes, Journey to the Center of the Earth is overlong, especially considering most of the film involves the principal actors gingerly walking at a downwardly angle toward the earth's center, encountering only modestly interesting sights along the way. The movie is almost shamelessly padded, with two songs performed by Boone, and a woefully predictable subplot involving his character's long-suffering sweetheart, Lindenbrook's niece, Jenny (Diane Baker). Further, the business of Göteborg's murder and Lindenbrook's negotiations with Carla only forestall what the movie audience has been waiting for, the journey to the center of the earth.

What the explorers find is colorful but a bit cheesy: giant petrified mushrooms, the rather paltry remains of Atlantis, and giant Dimetrodons, unconvincingly played by rhinoceros iguanas with fins glued to their backs.

However, Bernard Herrmann's score does a exceptional job selling these would-be wonders with a highly evocative, low-register score composed entirely of woodwinds, brass, percussion, harps and, most notably, a Cathedral and four electronic organs. It's one of the great composer's very best scores.

Video & Audio

Journey to the Center of the Earth was filmed in 2.35:1 CinemaScope and originally released with four-track magnetic stereo sound. The 4K remastered version improves upon the earlier release mainly in that it eliminates the occasional distortion caused by Fox's problematic early Bausch & Lomb anamorphic lenses ("CinemaScope mumps"). To this reviewer's eyes, the image is a wee bit sharper with improved color, but in all the tweaking unnaturally eliminates inherent film grain. It lacks the waxiness of extreme DNR, but everything appears a bit less organic. Twilight Time's first Blu-ray of the film included a DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 mix presumably identical to the four-track mag one. This time there's a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix (and, oddly, a 2.0 one), all three of which sound nearly the same to the untrained ear, though all are very impressive. A 2.0 mix of the isolated score is also included, effectively adding a soundtrack album to the package.

Extra Features

Supplements include an isolated a trailer in standard-def; and audio commentary featuring Diane Baker, Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith, and Nick Redman; with liner notes by Julie Kirgo.

Parting Thoughts

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a great family film, and while it doesn't really hold up to multiple viewings compared to other science fiction and fantasy films of the period, it's still a lot of fun. Highly Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.